Rachel the Hack

Long-time readers of this site know that we’ve often held Sam Tanenhaus’s feet to the fire. But with Rachel Donadio’s latest essay, it’s occurred to us that Donadio, perhaps working independently of Tanenhaus, may be one of the major problems with the NYTBR. While we applaud Dwight Garner’s “Inside the List” columns, welcome David Orr’s “On Poetry” (now regrettably behind a Gray Lady paywall), and believe Liesl Schillinger to be one of the NYTBR‘s few assets, we suspect that the NYTBR‘s very particular snobbish tone has much to do with Donadio.

So while we no longer keep up the Tanenhaus Brownie Watch, we are pleased to introduce a new series, which we hope will help everyone in understanding what makes this banal retentive writer tick.

We plan to keep an eye out for all future Rachel Donadio bylines. And unlike Ms. Donadio, we’ll offer substantive examples which demonstrate why Donadio may be the most mirthless book reviewer working in New York today.